Zelenskyy rejects formally ceding Ukrainian
territory,>br says Kyiv must be part of any negotiations
Associated Press News,
by
Samya Kullab
&
Elise Morton
Original Article
Posted By: Mercedes44,
8/9/2025 5:17:03 AM
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed Saturday the planned summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, warning that any peace deal excluding Kyiv would lead to “dead solutions.”
The Trump-Putin meeting, scheduled for Friday in Alaska, is seen as a potential breakthrough.
Trump had previously agreed to meet with Putin even if the Russian leader would not meet with Zelenskyy, stoking fears Ukraine could be sidelined in efforts to stop the continent’s biggest conflict since World War II.
In a statement posted to Telegram, Zelenskyy said Ukraine’s territorial integrity, enshrined in the constitution, must be non-negotiable and emphasized that lasting peace must include Ukraine’s voice at the table.
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Reply 1 - Posted by:
Strike3 8/9/2025 5:25:35 AM (No. 1988336)
Ukraine needs another leader.
60 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
FunOne 8/9/2025 7:01:29 AM (No. 1988370)
President Trumps negotiating skills will be put to their greatest test on this one.From a moral value,Putin should not be rewarded by any gains made from initiating this war, and I understand that Zelenskyy would take that position.
It all comes down to how much the two sides desire to end the slaughter of their countrymen. Trump is correct that this war would not have happened if he were President, but that point has absolutely nothing to add to resolving the matter.
My prediction is that no agreement will be acceptable to both sides and the war will continue for a few months. But with all of the economic sanctions that Trump is imposing on Russia, Putin's position will become weaker as the continuing decline in the quality of life for his people will have to be addressed.
One outcome needs to be clear: Zelenskyy must come clean on his operation of a laundry for the Biden family corruption, and Trump holds that IOU.
32 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
Msquared112 8/9/2025 7:01:55 AM (No. 1988371)
Z doesn't know the art of the deal. Trump does. Leave it to the Big Dogs.
29 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
Lazyman 8/9/2025 7:51:38 AM (No. 1988390)
Give up that land and allow the rest of Ukraine to immediately join NATO.
7 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
edgar 8/9/2025 8:05:44 AM (No. 1988394)
The winners write history, Zelensky will find that out soon enough.
27 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
laurenc 8/9/2025 8:41:58 AM (No. 1988398)
Mr. Z doesn't want peace. Peace means elections, and Mr. Z fears elections.
48 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
Zigrid 8/9/2025 9:07:03 AM (No. 1988409)
Oh brother...I'm getting very tired of the Z man worried about Russia taking to much land...and then they will be next on Putin's agenda...man..he's got someone in his ear telling him to be confrontational...who...???...I suspect the europeans...and then there's our own war mongers in the senate thinking they're big shots and calling the play....Putin has always been trying to take Chernobyl by Kiev...he wants the nuke sight....
12 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
LC Chihuahua 8/9/2025 9:10:50 AM (No. 1988410)
The meeting is a waste of time, but talk is cheap. There will be lots of shouting and finger pointing. Does anyone believe Putin will give back the parts of Ukraine he has already taken? Does anyone believe Zelesnky can take back the lands by force? Nope to both. Both sides still think they can win. Why talk peace. It is possible the main subject of the meeting will be Trump's tariffs against Russia.
16 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
TCloud 8/9/2025 9:15:04 AM (No. 1988416)
#5 says it!
9 people like this.
Zelensky has been an open and unashamed dictator for some time now. If this position is anything more than pre-negotiation bluster we must cut him loose.
13 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
earlybird 8/9/2025 11:23:09 AM (No. 1988465)
The problem is that Ukraine's voice remains Zelenskyy, an obstinate fool who has benefitted from this war, so has no motivation to end it. It's a performance to him - courageous wartime president dressed always in his version of army fatigues. And he is the loose cannon who could set off WWIII.
21 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
DVC 8/9/2025 11:34:00 AM (No. 1988471)
During WW2, especially during the first six months of the war, when we were demonstrably losing badly, how much land would we have ceded to Japan to get an early peace?
11 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
smaricic 8/9/2025 11:38:13 AM (No. 1988473)
Let Russia pay for any land it takes -- at a high cost in cash, oil, and gas. Ukraine must not join NATO for at least 20 years, but may accept weapons and training from NATO nations.
These and other ideas in my Peace Plan For Ukraine:
https://www.thethinkingconservative.com/peace-plan-for-ukraine/
3 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
NotaBene 8/9/2025 12:12:30 PM (No. 1988486)
The Ukrainian piano player must be feeling his oats because he got our President impeached and almost shot very easily. WE will receive the other Vladimir in America, return the Consulates Obama confiscated because of the Russia Russia Hoax and lift sanctions on oil so prices energy comes down and we all prosper. As for the War, the European Union will henceforth pay its costs in American Arms and Ukrainian pensions. We almost got ourselves into WW III but Donald Trump is pulling US out despite Lindsey, Da Nang Dick, and Tom Cotton.
10 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
FLCracker 8/9/2025 12:17:01 PM (No. 1988490)
Zelenskyy: one word "Sudetenland".
We all know what happens to person who doesn't attend meetings.
5 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
marbles 8/9/2025 12:30:54 PM (No. 1988495)
There is no money in peace. Zel knows that.
12 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
Felixed 8/9/2025 12:43:17 PM (No. 1988497)
Prepare to pound sand, little man. You grifting days are coming to a close when Putin and Trump figure out a way to exit claiming victory on all sides. With the Russian-speaking portion of Ukraine lost to the fools that insisted on pushing NATO right up to Russian borders.
10 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
DVC 8/9/2025 12:53:25 PM (No. 1988502)
I'm still amazed at how many still are rock solid on their belief in the Russian disinformation, and completely immune to the view from the side of a country attacked.
Just like Peal Harbor....what did WE do? We fought back with everything we had. And we did NOT believe Tokyo Rose.
4 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
Ashley Brenton 8/9/2025 1:15:48 PM (No. 1988515)
As well he should. Russia atill thinks it is the 20th Century. This land grab stuff needs to end. Be satisfied with what you have. It is no business of Russia if Ukraine wants to align with the EU. Every former Warsaw Pact country that has done so has a higher standard of living. Three out of five Russian homes still use outhouses and have to carry water home from a communal tap.
8 people like this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
earlybird 8/9/2025 1:38:38 PM (No. 1988522)
Attempted analogies using Japan and the US are not compelling. There is no parallel in those situations. A play on emotions?
Zelenskyy has been a disaster for Ukraine. Time for the Ukrainians to face that reality and deal with it.
18 people like this.
Reply 21 - Posted by:
Sunhan65 8/9/2025 2:49:28 PM (No. 1988533)
I appreciate #12/#18's take, but analogies are always tricky. Things that are different should be treated differently. I take the central point that we wouldn't want to give up our territory any more than the Ukraine does. However, what the Ukraine wants has historically been far less relevant than what Russia wants from it. The Ukraine cannot defeat Russia; in fact, it can barely resist it even with support from multiple external parties.
The US Japanese conflict was materially different in the literal sense of the word "material." During World War II, the US was an industrial mega power that was already arming half the world against Nazi Germany. The industrial capacity of the United States at that time allowed us to replace our losses at an enormously higher rate than Japan. The scale of the ship building already underway when Pearl Harbor was attacked completely dwarfed the capacity of the Japanese Navy within 2 years. In effect there were two US Pacific fleets. The one we had when the war started, and the one we added to it over the next two years.
And even if every single ship in the US Navy had been sunk at Pearl harbor, the Japanese still could not have conquered the US mainland. In the long run, Japan had no way to win except our capitulation. There was no chance that Japan would defeat or occupy the United States of America. There is every chance that Russia could and would do that to the Ukraine in the absence of support from external parties.
Whether I like Russia and Putin or not, and I don't, I don't feel obligated to put my country at risk to salvage the Ukraine's intermittent Independence from Russian dominance.
11 people like this.
Reply 22 - Posted by:
danu 8/9/2025 4:32:28 PM (No. 1988560)
we pray for ukr--knowing the ppl are being abused, impoverished and sabotaged by a murderous crook
2 people like this.
Reply 23 - Posted by:
FLCracker 8/9/2025 4:38:44 PM (No. 1988564)
#12, 18, and 21:
Along with #21, the Russia-Ukraine War is much less like WW2 and much more like North-South Viet Nam War, with North Viet Nam being Russia and the South being Ukraine. Similar sorts of long-term historical relationships between the sides, length of conflict and bunches of outside influence/intervention.
To be called "another Viet Nam" is another historical meme like being "another Hitler; however, in this case it is a case-in-point.
4 people like this.
Reply 24 - Posted by:
earlybird 8/9/2025 4:41:08 PM (No. 1988565)
If power mad wild hair Zelenskyy wasn't a danger to the world as we know it I'd say "Stay home, PDJT - let them duke it out."
8 people like this.
Reply 25 - Posted by:
franco 8/9/2025 6:53:30 PM (No. 1988593)
Some replies here are ignoring obvious parallels to the past. I specifically refer here to the U.S. President negotiating the ceding of territory of a foreign country -- Ukraine in this case -- to an aggressor nation, Russia. No foreign leader has the prerogative to do this, and the last time it happened was in Munich in 1938, when British PM Neville Chamberlain thought he'd negotiated "peace in our time" by giving Hitler a chunk of Czechoslovakia. He found out otherwise, and with a war on much larger scale than he could have imagined. For several generations we've known that appeasement doesn't work, because the appetite of the appeased will only be quenched with removal from power. The failure of the last couple of generations to grasp this is a failure of their teachers -- people of my generation.
Personally, I pray that we don't see "Munich 2.0" next week. But that's a distinct possibility. When Chamberlain returned from Munich in 1938, Winston Churchill panned his diplomatic accomplishment in Parliament with these words: “You have been given the choice between war and dishonor. You have chosen dishonor, and you will have war!” If "Munich 2.0" comes to pass next week, a similar set of words will probably be penned for the man -- President Trump -- who may well become the Chamberlain of his time. I will note here that history barely recalls the name of the man who led Czechoslovakia in 1938. The same may happen to Zelensky -- a man vilified (and largely due to effective agitprop by people susceptible to it) in the present will not be remembered at all. But millions in multiple countries may be condemned to take up arms and die because of the decisions of one man next week. Pray he makes the right decision.
1 person likes this.
Reply 26 - Posted by:
SweetPea3 8/9/2025 7:49:23 PM (No. 1988611)
Dealing with Z and P is like trying to herd cats.
3 people like this.
Reply 27 - Posted by:
gwholmessr 8/10/2025 8:43:32 AM (No. 1988717)
Zelensky needs to go. I don’t care how it’s done but that little panty waste doesn’t want peace
2 people like this.
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